We explore the extent to which organizational capabilities are location-specific by studying the location choices and longevity of East German machine tool producers that relocated to West Germany after World War II. Relocating firms were similar in performance to experienced West German...

Investigating the role of diversification in the firm growth process, we build on Penrose’s (The theory of the growth of the firm. Oxford University Press, Oxford, <CitationRef CitationID="CR30">1959</CitationRef>) Theory of the Growth of the Firm to formulate hypotheses about growth of employment, assets and sales in the years before,...</citationref>

We focus on the relationship between age and diversification patterns of German machine tool manufacturers in the post-war era. We distinguish between ‘minor diversification’ (adding a new product variation within a familiar submarket) and ‘major diversification’ (expanding the product...

The paper investigates the stability and change of regional economic activities in the long run. As the unit of analysis, we selected the machine tool industry in West Germany for the years 1953--2002. We spot a strong variance in the activities between different regions. These differences are...

We identify the impact of local firm concentration on incumbent performance with a quasi natural experiment. When Germany was divided after World War II, many firms in the machine tool industry fled the Soviet occupied zone to prevent expropriation. We show that the regional location decisions...